BP boss Bob Dudley promised to ‘reset’ the oil giant, and he hasn’t. Now his dreams of Arctic glory have been dashed by rival Exxon

It was a full-scale retreat in the Gulf of Mexico last week as a giant
tropical depression, hundreds of miles out at sea, churned ominously toward
land.

The Development Driller II was already safely in the harbour. Every day, BP
pays $480,000 (£296,000) to Transocean, its owner, to have the rig on call.
Yet since it finished its last job a year ago, boring one of the “relief
wells” that finally plugged the oil giant’s leaking Macondo reservoir, it
has done nothing.

It hasn’t drilled a well. It hasn’t plugged any either. What it has done is
run up an almighty rent bill — $108m and counting — waiting for a call that
has never come. So have three other high-priced rigs that BP has peppered
round the gulf — burning a